long story short, my father had offered to give us the majority of the wedding budget which is what we were basing our planning on. However, apparently he and his gf who is somehow involved in this? decided we would be required to beg HER for the money and convince HER of all FI and I's wedding decisions.
It was readily apparent he was suddenly not happy about giving us money for the wedding and, after several nights of crying and horribly mean telephone conversations, FI and I decided this was NOT fun anymore and not how planning our wedding was supposed to be so I explained that to him in a long email and stated FI and I would be financing our wedding now.
(FYI, I would have preferred to talk to my dad face-to-face or on the phone but he is the type that refuses to listen/hear and just talks over you so I thought my message might get across better this way)
So, on to today, his parents were going to pay for the rehearsal dinner thenight before the wedding and my mom offered an extra $1000 on top of the money she spent on my dress,veil etc. FI looked into personal loans,which we defnitely could get and afford to do, it would just be slightly tighter around the house but I'm questioning whether I actually want to go in debt for our wedding our not.
So, our options are:
1. Get the loan, have the wedding we were planning but on a slightly lesser scale
2. Elope in a few months with whoever can come with us and then his parents offered to have a celebratory party at their house shortly thereafter (which, I know, is not the best etiquette but his family and mine would rather this then no wedding celebration)
3. Keep our original wedding date, get married at our church and then have everyone drive to his parents for the reception immediately afterward.
4. Book a wedding through our honeymoon place and whoever can go does and we get married there in May.
4. Other great ideas maybe one of you have!
We've already paid for our photographer out of our pocket and put a deposit down on our DJ which we wouldn't be able to get back so we'd be out about $4,000 if we don't have it here if that factors into your decision. Also, I really wanted to have a Catholic wedding and am unsure how complicated the process would be to get our marriage recognized in the church if we don't get married there especially since we are planning on starting a family right away.
Thanks for all your help, I am just feeling so depressed and sad today about this. I just want to marry FI and he feels the same. I really at a loss as to why my dad suddenly started acting like this, although, years ago, he had a habit of acting pretty awful towards me and holding money over my head. I just thought our relationship had grown since then and we were at a better place or I wouldn't have accepted his offer in the first place.
